Variety Grow - Perpetual, "Mini" ScrOG's, DWC in a Cabinet (First Timer)

i say to leave the light schedule where it is now. they dont need anything extra to think about while they get them roots out. i would be game however to watching you cut them girls up!!! when they heal up of course!!

If it was me I'd go back to 18/6 or even 20/4. I never use 24/0. I think they need the rest. That hour (or 3) is more needed to suck up energy. I've flipped all around during Vegging with no problems. There is a build up of phytochrome (Pr) that daylight turns into it's inactive form (Prf) so to flower they need a build up that takes around 12 hrs. Light turns Pr to Prf quickly. So I think you can vary to suit your needs all you want until you start the build up of phytochrome with the 12/12.
I use the topping for 4 Colas most times. For a Scrog it seems necessary. The veg time is worth it and with your Hydro once it kicks in you should be golden.
For leaves I think of "Would the wind blow this off?". Just a tiny tug or pull a bit to see.
Daniels

No good news. No bad news. Still alive, still a bit yellow, still pretty perky, new growth still appears to be doing well so it seems other parts of the plant are giving of themselves until roots get through. I only foliar feed once in the morning and then mist with straight water a couple other times during lights on and leave them alone otherwise.

By the way everyone, Merry Christmas!

I got Rock Band 3! All ready kicking ass on drums! (been playing since RB2!!)

I already peaked at some of your presents! I hope everyone had enjoyable and peaceful holiday with friends and family.

Oh BTW, one of my guests this weekend asked me how long I've had the Xmas tree and then asked what's up with all of the new growth on the tree? Even if it doesn't sprout roots, this tree smells amazing after a week.

merry christmas jsgamber!! glad your was good, and the tree story sounds awesome!!

For the past few days I've been letting Christmas be a good excuse for exercising "less is more" and just let the plants recover without me messing with them all too much. I've had them back on 18/6 and I was hoping to see some roots poking out of the bottom of the pots (at least one of them) by now. So I went ahead and peaked.

I took out Blue Dream and started pulling out hydroton pellets. I ended pulling her out all the way and found all the roots she had were brown and shriveled. But I did notice 2 or three new thick roots starting to emerge from the rock wool. Because of this, I went ahead and cut away all the bad roots (there weren't that many) hoping the plant will rely more on the new ones. Two of the Skywalker's have several brand new white roots poking out 1/4" so this made me happy but my poor sickly one has nothing yet and is just hanging on.

While I was at it I checked out the bottoms of the pot. Even though the bottom level of rocks were moist, then next layer were just barely damp and everything else was dry which I don't think is as good as it should be considering the root plugs weren't even all that moist.

So what I've done:

• Cut away all brown sickly roots
• Misted the bottom of the root plug and dipped it in a bit of rooting powder
• Placed 1" of pellets in the netpot
• Misted the pellets with pH water and set the root plugs on top
• Raised water level to 3/4" below the pot

I used the foliar feed to spray the bottom with the hope the plant will get some instant food intake. The rooting powder will hopefully accelerate things a bit.

Leaving the pellets out of the pot (except the last 1") will let me monitor how moist it get's which will give me a better idea how to set water levels for the future and also give me a bit more instant feedback in case I need to adjust further.

ran across this while googling about DWC. Thought it could help you out.

http://www.420magazine.com/forums/deep-water-culture-dwc/111069-deep-water-culture-tutorial-sh-kit-diy.html

Ponicengineer said:

ran across this while googling about DWC. Thought it could help you out.

http://www.420magazine.com/forums/deep-water-culture-dwc/111069-deep-water-culture-tutorial-sh-kit-diy.html

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Dude! Thanks for this URL because it's made me a very busy boy! +REP

Just like Gumball getting his temps in order, I'm trying to get roots going and leaves to turn green.

I've done several changes over the past few days and I'll be putting up pics in a bit. The health of the girls are varied and I'm wondering if they are permanently stunted. Getting roots to pop has been very challenging and I don't know if it's due to recovering from stress and any moment they'll just turn on and go. I can see the roots in the hydroton, they look good, they just aren't getting longer! Any thoughts for now?

I'll post environmental info along with pics in a bit.

On a separate note, here's the top of my Xmas tree. It's growing!!! Some tips have grown as much as 6"! When you walk in the house the smell of the tree is still overwhelming. Even if it doesn't sprout roots, running the tree in DWC has been a great method of keeping a tree alive and fire resistant!

OK. Again I'd like to thank Ponicengineer for pointing me to that Blog URL. This guy really knows his DWC but he focuses more on overall growing. It's still in blog format but he has it set up in two different blogs with one being for asking questions so the information is easy to read without having stepping through and dealing with questions. It's a great tutorial on growing MJ and he just happens to use DWC.

So what have I been doing? Basically following this guys "Eight Step Program". My name is jsgamber, and I am killing my plants. (you guys all chant back "Hello jsgamber, we all understand your pain").

First I have to realize that I am still in rooting stage and I need to get these ladies some roots before they will do anything spectacular, such as vegetate let alone bloom. The pics below show them in much better shape than the past few days, at least from the "perky" element. But they are still yellowish. Unless someone has a better diagnosis, I believe they went into shock and stopped taking up nutrition and at some point stopped taking up water. I think I overfed them with the foliar spray and the pH went through some ups and downs, due to over correcting.

So here is the list of what's current and what I've changed to get it there:

1. I've backed down on the intensity of the lamp and raised the plants up higher. I switched the lighting to my 250w MH bulb.
2. Removed all of the tanks from chamber, cleaned the Mylar, cleaned the glass and PVC tubes of the cool tube (inside and outside), washed the bottom down with soapy water with a bit of peroxide added. Within the next few days I'm going to spray the entire garage as well as the exterior of the cabinet with Home Defense bug spray (the 12 month kind).
3. I've added a second airstone to each water container. There's no such thing as over-oxygenating the water (the extreme is aeroponics, right?). The water is going to get the rooting medium wet. As long as that water is oxygen rich and is being re-wetted with oxygen rich water, the chances of "over-watering" and "drowning" the plants is decreased. I believe this is true since my plants have perked up.
4. I've done a complete water change. I'm now pre-treating the water for Chloramine (noticed yellowing with rusty yellow spots).
5. I am running with quarter strength grow nutes. BC Boost and BC Grow only with no other nutritional additives.
6. With the reduced wattage, the air temps are now running at 70* with lights on. I've switch back to 24/7 lighting.
7. Humidity levels were running at 35%. I've now laid out 2 completely soaked bath towel rolls, a completely soaked hand towel and two bowls of water with a twisted paper towel acting as a wick. Humidity is now back up between 50% to 60%.
8. Ambient temps in the garage have been running 60*-65* and sometimes it's been lower. Outside temps are in the low 40's at night to low 60's during the day. This has kept my water tanks running between 60* and 65*. Maybe a little cool so I've stopped exhausting air from from the cabinet. I'd really like it if it were 75* air temp and 65*-68* water temp.
9. The pink "girly" fan is running on low and the 133cfm fan blowing from the mini-fridge keeps air circulating and pulls up moisture from the towels.
10. I aim to keep pH at 5.8. Any adjustments are made in .4 increments no less than four hours apart. But I don't adjust as long as I'm between 5.7 and 6.2. There was an interesting chart (soil and hydro) on the pH ranges at which different nutrients are taken up. This means minor fluctuations in pH are actually good for plants which help them better take up different nutrients as the pH level changes as long as it's slow and gradual. Current pH is 6.0 in all tanks.
11. Since these girls are clones, it's assumed these girls came from a somewhat healthy female plant running close to full strength veg nutes. I'm thinking of boosting them to half strength in a day or so unless someone sees something else wrong.

What am I forgetting? I think this is as close to a perfect environment as I can get. I've got more reading to do. It's been nice to stop along the way and make the corrections slowly and make sure the plants continue moving in a positive direction. There is no sign of nute burn and all of the new growth is the same pale yellow color with no hint of browning.

The cab and adjustments


Blue Dream


Skywalker #1


Skywalker #2


Skywalker #3

well they do look a touch over watered at the moment. how is the rockwool? i figure you got that one covered!

i looked up the BC grow and boost, and they dont seem to be a COMPLETE nutrient. they lack a few of the micro nutrients, and while I cant say they are deficient of those few micro nutes, with hydro we have to supply all nutrients so that could be the issue. maybe try to find a complete micro additive of some type, or see what your lacking and try to find pictures of plants deficient in that.

the lack of exhaust exchange concerns me somewhat. could you bypass the frig cooler simply enough to rule the lack of exhaust out as the problem without a ton of labor? i know it should work and be ok, but in there current state they arent supplying the environment with enough resources themselves either.

thats my .02 on it. i cant think of anything else right now, but if I do I will throw it at ya!!

Sounds like you're getting them better.
Daniels

gumball said:

well they do look a touch over watered at the moment. how is the rockwool? i figure you got that one covered!

i looked up the BC grow and boost, and they dont seem to be a COMPLETE nutrient. they lack a few of the micro nutrients, and while I cant say they are deficient of those few micro nutes, with hydro we have to supply all nutrients so that could be the issue. maybe try to find a complete micro additive of some type, or see what your lacking and try to find pictures of plants deficient in that.

the lack of exhaust exchange concerns me somewhat. could you bypass the frig cooler simply enough to rule the lack of exhaust out as the problem without a ton of labor? i know it should work and be ok, but in there current state they arent supplying the environment with enough resources themselves either.

thats my .02 on it. i cant think of anything else right now, but if I do I will throw it at ya!!

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Right now it's pretty cold (probably not compared to MT ). Outside is 35*, the garage is 50* and with everything buttoned up and no exhaust fans running, the cabinet is maintaining at 71*. Every time I peak in, the air temp drops by 10*.

I only just turned the last exhaust fan off yesterday afternoon. All of the intake and exhaust portals are still open. I'm hoping the passive flow of hot air high and cool air low is slowly drawing air through the cabinet. The mini-fridge is off so the 133 cfm fan is just providing air movement inside along with the pink fan. If you think I need more airflow, I'll look at hooking up the exhaust fans to a fan controller and reducing the rpm. I just don't want the girls to get too cold.

I'm taking the term "a bit over watered" as a good thing. A couple of days a go they looked "very over watered" and not close to this perky. The tops of the rockwool and root plugs is dry and when I lift out the netpot, the lower 1.5" of Hydroton is wet and I do see root nubs inside. This is where I'm not sure where to head. Now are they telling me they are hungry, or are they in nute locked out?

My thinking regarding the BC nutes is I'm not making the full recipe at this time. The full veg recipe calls for Cal/Mag, ThriveAlive B1 and SugarDaddy which I believe are what supply those micro nutrients. The article I read talked about feeding 16 oz steaks and mashed potatoes to an infant. I'm just trying to give them the basic NPK building blocks they need until they get roots going. Does this sound reasonable?

I'm glad you guys are here to give me a second set of eyes and a touch of experience.

Danielsgb said:

Sounds like you're getting them better.
Daniels

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I hope so. The hard part for me is doing too many changes at once and not knowing which change fucked me up.

One of the philosophies this guy has is don't experiment unless you can afford to lose plants. Only do the things you know and don't do the things you think. So I'm trying to go a bit "old school" and get back to understanding the basics before I get ahead of myself. I'm not experienced at growing anything let alone MJ so it's all new still and I'm learning tons!

jsgamber said:

Right now it's pretty cold (probably not compared to MT ). Outside is 35*, the garage is 50* and with everything buttoned up and no exhaust fans running, the cabinet is maintaining at 71*. Every time I peak in, the air temp drops by 10*.

I only just turned the last exhaust fan off yesterday afternoon. All of the intake and exhaust portals are still open. I'm hoping the passive flow of hot air high and cool air low is slowly drawing air through the cabinet. The mini-fridge is off so the 133 cfm fan is just providing air movement inside along with the pink fan. If you think I need more airflow, I'll look at hooking up the exhaust fans to a fan controller and reducing the rpm. I just don't want the girls to get too cold.

I'm taking the term "a bit over watered" as a good thing. A couple of days a go they looked "very over watered" and not close to this perky. The tops of the rockwool and root plugs is dry and when I lift out the netpot, the lower 1.5" of Hydroton is wet and I do see root nubs inside. This is where I'm not sure where to head. Now are they telling me they are hungry, or are they in nute locked out?

My thinking regarding the BC nutes is I'm not making the full recipe at this time. The full veg recipe calls for Cal/Mag, ThriveAlive B1 and SugarDaddy which I believe are what supply those micro nutrients. The article I read talked about feeding 16 oz steaks and mashed potatoes to an infant. I'm just trying to give them the basic NPK building blocks they need until they get roots going. Does this sound reasonable?

I'm glad you guys are here to give me a second set of eyes and a touch of experience.

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ok, i didnt realize ambient was too cold to run exhaust. I also thought your exhaust was totally closed off, like a sealed room per'se. yeah, they dont look super overwatered. but just a touch droopy still.

that nute recipe does sound a bit much for such small things. i guess its just time to sit back and give them time. i think changing things up on them much more may be more harmful than beneficial. but as clones they could be aged quite a bit and be able to handle a lot more. maybe you could contact the place you got the clones and tell them your having trouble, and ask if these strains are harder to grow. maybe they can give you some insight???

gumball said:

ok, i didnt realize ambient was too cold to run exhaust. I also thought your exhaust was totally closed off, like a sealed room per'se. yeah, they dont look super overwatered. but just a touch droopy still.

that nute recipe does sound a bit much for such small things. i guess its just time to sit back and give them time. i think changing things up on them much more may be more harmful than beneficial. but as clones they could be aged quite a bit and be able to handle a lot more. maybe you could contact the place you got the clones and tell them your having trouble, and ask if these strains are harder to grow. maybe they can give you some insight???

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OK so I've done a bit more reading on my Nute labels. Up until now I just trusted "The Recipe for Success." Apparently their success formula is making sure things just barely stay alive.

So the basic Veg formula per the recipe and the bottle labels is 2:1 Boost:Grow Nutes.

Now the recipe calls for 7.5ml BC Grow and 15ml BC Boost per 4 liters (1 gal). Since I'm running 1/4 strength I've been doing 2ml/4ml per 4 liters (1 gal) or in the end 0.5/1 ml per 1 liter of water.

The label on the Grow bottle:


I have basically been putting in 1/3 strength of the lowest level dose according to the bottle. Maybe it is under feeding. My adjusted PPM's were only 430!

So I did another water change this time shooting for level 2 on the side of the bottle as 1/2 strength, in other words 2/4ml per liter or 14/28ml per 7 liters of water. Now adjusted PPM's are 910 and pH is 5.77 in all water containers.

jsgamber said:

I'm My thinking regarding the BC nutes is I'm not making the full recipe at this time. The full veg recipe calls for Cal/Mag, ThriveAlive B1 and SugarDaddy which I believe are what supply those micro nutrients.

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No expert on me, and I could be reading your post wrong, but I if you're using RO water I believe Cal/Mag is a requirement. Calcium and magnesium are normally present in tap water but get removed in the reverse osmosis process. Again, no expert on me. I haven't grown so much as a twig yet! But I don't think plants can live without it.

pntrbl said:

No expert on me, and I could be reading your post wrong, but I if you're using RO water I believe Cal/Mag is a requirement. Calcium and magnesium are normally present in tap water but get removed in the reverse osmosis process. Again, no expert on me. I haven't grown so much as a twig yet! But I don't think plants can live without it.

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I think you are correct. I am using tap water and the PPM is 430 at 64*. I looked up the annual water quality report for our district and both Cal and Mag are present in the water supply as well as Choramine (chlorine and ammonia bonded together) is added as a disinfectant. I'm using a standard fish tank/pond additive which instantly breaks the bond and then the air stones actually cause both chlorine and ammonia to dissipate within minutes.

Here are a couple of links that discuss pH and water. Basically other than the chlorine, most other (non-toxic) elements in the water supply, such as iron, magnesium, calcium, etc. all act as pH buffers and help to keep the water at a stable pH without large spikes. It sounds reasonable to me and I have to believe between properly prepared tap water kept at 60*-65* with a basic grow/boost nutrient solution at half-strength with a stable 6.0 pH, any plant should show reasonable healthy growth. What do you think?

So for now I'll let what I have in my tap water naturally be my "trace" elements. I do have to say I've never had any major spikes to my pH without it being something besides water alone (algae, dead leaves).

Got my second cup of coffee and the Rose Parade is on. I am so fucking amazed that no matter how much crappy weather we have, January 1st in Pasadena is always 60*, perfectly clear, snow on the mountains and perfectly blue sky! Gotta love the Rose parade gods in SoCal!

http://www.420magazine.com/forums/955866-post23.html
http://www.420magazine.com/forums/956952-post52.html

so how are the girls today?

GB, you make a great straight-man! Bah-Bah---Bah---Chee. Stay tuned for our next act!.

Pics and some experimentation for you in a bit.

Here they are, still hanging in. I took pictures last night and again this morning. Not sure if there is any change but I do notice a bit of nute burn on the leaf tips. I think I might dilute the water a bit. All pH levels ranged from 5.9 to 6.2 and water temps are 61*.

Blue Dream




Skywalker #1




Skywalker #2




Skywalker #3